Absence of Zakat Committees: deserving people may again remain deprived of Zakat

Hundreds of thousands of deserving people in Punjab are likely to be once again deprived of Zakat money, owing to non-existence of Zakat Committees at provincial, district and local levels.
Punjab Zakat and Ushar Department's Secretary, Kazi Afaq Hussain told APP here on Sunday that the Zakat Committees are still not constituted in the province for distribution of Zakat funds. The province, he added comprised of one provincial, 36 districts and around 26,000 local zakat committees.
He said, the Central Zakat Committee has not released Punjab's share of 56 percent of the total zakat funds, which was Rs 2.40 billion last year.
"This year, I have yet to receive the data of Zakat collection as well as the share of Punjab in this regard," he responded to a question. Kazi said the zakat committees were abolished by the present government in 2008, considering that previous regime had formed these on political basis in violation of the Zakat and Ushar Ordinance 1980.